Paul Andreev

Holy Hieromartyr Paul Andreev, a priest, was born in 1880 in the village of Annino in Kursk province, in the family of the peasant Arkady Vasilyevich Andreev. In 1892 he entered the Kursk Theological Seminary, then the Theological Academy in Saint Petersburg, which he completed in 1902. On 14 July 1902 he was ordained priest by Bishop Simeon of Ekaterinoslav. From 1902 to 1912 he taught the Law of God in the schools of a mine in Ekaterinoslav province, and from 1912 to 1919 at the real school in Bakhmut, and was priest of the school church.

From 1920 he served in villages of the Mariupol district, and from 1922 to 1929 at the church of Saint Nicholas in the port of Mariupol. In 1923 he was given a pectoral cross and raised to archpriest; in 1924 he became dean of the churches of Mariupol and received from Patriarch Tikhon a cross with decorations. Between 1925 and 1928 he was plenipotentiary for the administration of the Mariupol vicariate. In 1927 the OGPU arrested him on charges of anti-⁠Soviet agitation, but could prove nothing and released him after two months. In 1929 he was appointed priest of the Church of the Resurrection on Ostozhenka in Moscow, then sacristan of the Epiphany Cathedral in Dorogomilovo, and received a mitre. On 21 March 1932 he was arrested again, held in Butyrka and accused of organizing a meeting against Metropolitan Sergius's interview on religious persecution. He answered that his sermons and talks had no political colour. On 10 May 1932 he was sentenced to three years of exile in Kazakhstan, at Alma-⁠Ata.

Returning from exile in 1935, he was priest of the Church of the Ascension at Teryaeva Sloboda, and in 1937 of the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Vozmishche and dean of the parishes of the Volokolamsk, Shakhovskoy and Lotoshino districts. The investigations in the autumn of 1937 also concerned the priests Alexander Zverev and Dimitry Rozanov, and the nuns who sang in the choir. Father Paul was arrested on 7 October 1937 and held in Volokolamsk. He was interrogated two days later and, like the others, did not admit guilt. Witnesses were induced by the investigators to sign false statements.

On 2 November he had his last interrogation, with a single question: did he admit guilt? He answered that he did not. On 14 November 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced the priests Paul Andreev, Alexander Zverev and Dimitry Rozanov to death. The archpriests Paul and Alexander were shot on 16 November 1937, and Dimitry on 25 November, and were buried in the common grave at Butovo.

He is commemorated on 16 November, on 29 May (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Butovo and on 5 September (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.